The Unexpected Baby
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: One little mistake and they were stuck in an impossible situation- one that physically shouldn't have even been possible. Who said pregnancy was a blessing?
1. Revelations For One

I lay on my bed, eyes closed, wondering if I willed something hard enough that it would come true. Just hours before I had been sitting in the common room of Gryffindor house with my younger cousin and had prayed that no one would notice I was acting rather odd. Of course, much to my dismay, Lily had noted rather early on that there was something strange going on with me and had pointed it out. A bit loudly.

I had insisted that everything was fine, I was merely exhausted from all the work I had been doing and my lack of sleep. "You know how obsessed I can get with my work," I had tried to soothe. "I'll just get to bed early tonight and I'm sure I'll be right back to normal in the morning."

"Are you sure, Rose?"

I knew that my cousin was just worried about me. And I was thankful for my cousin's concern but I also wasn't in the mood to discuss how I had been acting with anyone. At least not yet. In time I would be able to bring myself to, but for now I would rather sit on my own and pretend it wasn't happening. There was nothing wrong with wanting to pretend- in front of others at least- that everything was the same as it had always been.

So, trying to avoid any further prodding from Lily I had excused myself using the lack of sleep excuse and made my way back up to my bed, flopping down onto the mattress with a heavy sigh. _Sixteen and my life is over,_ I thought miserably. _Sixteen bloody years old. Mum and Dad are going to kill me. They'll hex me to oblivion and back. Oh Merlin, what am I going to do?_

Gazing down at myself I wondered if people could tell there was something different about me. Surely they would have noticed by now that something was amiss, wouldn't they? There was no way they could all be that oblivious to it. Or perhaps I was being too paranoid for my own good. After all, I was so worried about people finding out before I was ready that it wasn't entirely unlikely for me to be imagining their ability to notice anything more than my acting withdrawn. And I was sure my excuse about needing sleep would be good enough to convince them that I was being honest. Wasn't it?

"Bloody hell." Pulling my pillow out from under my head I shoved it over my face, groaning loudly. This year, I knew, wasn't going to go like everyone planned it. And why was that?

Because I, Rose Weasley, was pregnant. And the father would never believe me. 

"Oi, Rose. Are you awake?"

Melina Rend waved her hand in front of my face to try to get my attention.

I blinked twice, then turned my attention to Melina, a faint blush crawling up the back of my neck. "Sorry. I lost time for a moment. What were you saying?"

"I asked if you could dice up more chamomile for the potion."

"Oh, right! Of course, of course. Sorry." Grabbing the small knife off of the table I proceeded to slice the pieces into pieces as close to the same size as I could. I knew if I kept acting this way then it would only be a matter of time before people grew suspicious of me. After all, I had gone to sleep early two nights in a row and was still acting, as I had put it, tired. They would figure out something much more serious was going on if I wasn't careful of my behavior in class.

"Be careful." Melina grabbed the hand with the knife, wrenching it back, her eyes wide. "You nearly cut your thumb off, Rose."

"Bloody hell." Glancing down at the appendage in question I felt the blush crawl up my neck again. "I'm so sorry, Melina. I'm just not myself today."

"Not yourself a lot lately, actually. Are you sure nothing's been bothering you?"

"No, no. Nothing at all. Just don't know where my head's at. Just getting lost in thought, that's all. No need to worry about me. I'll pay closer attention."

"Maybe I should dice up the chamomile."

"I can do it, Melina. I promise. I'll pay attention this time and you won't have to save my fingers. Thank you for that, by the way."

"Uh-huh." Melina kept her gaze on me long enough it made me shift uncomfortably in my seat. Was it possible she could tell my secret just by glancing at me? I knew I wasn't showing- it wasn't nearly time for that to happen. But was it possible she was one of those women that had a sixth sense for that kind of thing and instantly _knew_ just by looking at me. If she was then Merlin help me because I would be in trouble. "If you're sure you can handle it."

"I can."

She nodded slightly and returned to stirring the bubbling fluid in the cauldron in front of her, trying to make sure it didn't scorch in any way while I went back to cutting up the chamomile, trying to both focus on the task at hand while trying to think about the crisis at hand.

So, I was pregnant. Of that I was positive. I had managed to gather the ingredients secretly over the course of several weeks to brew a test and it had turned out positive. There was no denying that I had a little life growing inside of me at this very moment. Before it had been a possibility, a question with an unknown answer, and now it had become a reality I couldn't escape if I wanted to. This child was real and growing with each passing day into something that would one day burst out of me kicking and screaming and wanting love and food and attention. All the things I was pretty sure I was too young to provide. But all those things I would try to give this child.

It wasn't even a question whether or not I was going to have this baby. The minute I knew for certain that there was a little life growing inside of me I knew that I would have to learn how to be a mother. This child was mine, a little part of me, and there was no way I was going to throw it away like yesterday's copy of the Daily Prophet. No, I would have this little one and love him or her to the best of my ability. I would eventually have to tell my parents I was pregnant and though they'd be upset about the situation I was almost positive that they would be supportive of my decision to keep the baby. I was even more positive that they would be willing to help me take care of the baby. After all, this would be their grandchild. Besides, Grandma Molly would rip Dad in half if she knew he was unwilling to help family. Family is everything, she had always said.

I finished cutting up the chamomile and deposited it into the cauldron in time to hear all too familiar laughter. Turning my head slightly to gaze behind me I let my gaze fall upon a table close to the back.

For a reason I couldn't ascertain Scorpius Malfoy was laughing his head off. It was possible that his partner had said something amusing, but the prospect of that was rather unlikely. After all he wasn't known for being the smartest person to walk the halls of Hogwarts. So perhaps the guy had said something rather asinine and that was what Scorpius found amusing.

I had to admit that since we had first come to Hogwarts he had grown into a very attractive young man. His hair, though blonde like his father's, was a bit darker, favoring more the shade of his mother's now that he had gotten older. His face had filled out and he looked more like a man now than a boy with sharp features that made him look handsome rather than cute. He was tall and lean but solid enough from Quidditch that it would take quite a lot to take him on physically.

Yes, he was a rather attractive guy. And it came as no surprise to me that many of the girls fell at his feet just for the chance to have him look their way. He was the one they all wanted and found themselves- for the most part- unable to have.

Oh, don't get me wrong. It wasn't like he hadn't dated his share of girls- I knew for a fact he dated several- but the ratio for the number of girls who wanted to date him and the ones he actually dated was severely unbalance. The statistics weren't in their favor. Never would be. He was rather picky about who he chose to date.

The last girl he had seriously dated he had dropped just before summer break. He had claimed that them dating over the long separation would have been ridiculous and it was really for the best. But I suspected he only dumped her so over the summer he could date other girls. And since the return to Hogwarts he hadn't dated anyone seriously. Though he had gone on several dates with different girls.

Why was it I knew so much about Scorpius Malfoy? I had made it my business to learn as much about him as I could as of late. Why? Because it only seems right for me to know as much as I could about the father of my baby.

The professor called the end of class and told us all to bottle up some of our potions and bring them to the front of the class. Melina offered to bring ours up, no doubt worried that since I nearly cut off my own thumb I would probably drop the bottle. But no matter what her motive I was thankful because I was now on a mission.

Gathering up my things I shoved them into my back, for once not caring if the notes got bent or ripped. I could rewrite them at a later date but this was important. This had to be done now.

I thanked Melina again and headed out of the classroom, following the trail of an all too familiar and tall blonde. Several girls approached him in the hall to flirt with him. I kept my distance, watching him smile and flirt back but even I could tell he wasn't interested in those specific girls. Sadly though they didn't seem to get it and kept flirting, brushing their hands against his arms as though it would make him want to take them for a quick shag right then and there in a spare room. And come to think of it, how many women _had_ he shagged? Did I even want to know the answer to that? No, I'd rather have that remain a mystery.

Once had had managed to lose the girls and continue on his way I followed him more closely, afraid to lose him in the crowded halls. I had finally gotten up the courage to do this and if I lost him, if I had to wait one more day for this I wouldn't be able to find the courage again. It sounds rather pathetic but it was true: at times I could be a right coward. Perhaps Gryffindor wasn't the best place for me.

As he reached the stairs that led down to the Slytherin common room I reacted without thinking. I reached out and grabbed his arm tightly. "Malfoy."

He stopped short as if surprised someone had to nerve to do that. An obviously female someone at that. Turning slowly he fixed his eyes on me, studying me for a moment until he could clearly see who I was. "Weasley."

I took a deep breath, willing myself to remain courageous. There was no backing out now. "We need to talk."

Oh boy did we ever.


	2. Revelations Of Accidental Reproduction

Scorpius met my eyes in the dim light of the hallway by the common room. It still amazed me even after all these years how gray his eyes actually were. They were cold and endless, like I was falling into a deep abyss. Sometimes the very idea of even looking him in the eye was enough to make me feel like I was falling. He managed to find a way to get under my skin even despite the fact that we rarely spoke. We were rarely even face to face. "What makes you think we need to speak, Weasley?"

"Believe me, Malfoy. We need to speak. Desperately." I was very proud that I managed to keep my voice level and calm. Especially when inside I was anything but. Inside I was in a state of panic, wondering how much he'd freak out by the news. And why wouldn't he go completely mental? It wasn't every day you got told news of this magnitude, was it? Then again, I wasn't sure what he actually heard often or not. There were so many things I didn't actually know about him to be honest.

His gaze remained on my face for a while. Far too long. I could feel warmth flow over the back of my neck as a blush threatened to cover my face. Him staring at me that intently was making me feel rather uncomfortable. Finally he nodded though, then motioned with his chin down the hall. "Follow me then, Weasley."

I watched him inch past me, arm barely brushing up against mine as he passed. I felt something clench within my stomach. Oh boy, looks like the little one inside of me knew when the daddy was nearby. That could prove to be problematic.

After taking several deep breaths I made my way down the hall after him, watching his long, even strides. Was it insane that I wanted to let him know what was going on? Surely I could have kept it from him. And while that wouldn't have been the smartest thing in the world to do it sure would have been easier. And I doubt he ever would have been able to figure out this child was his.

Scorpius stopped them in the middle of my internal struggle and turned back towards me, leaning against the wall next to one of the windows. The light hit his hair in a way that made it seem much more fair than it actually was and cast shadows across his face. "What did you want to talk about, Weasley?"

In the past it had never bothered me when he called me 'Weasley'. But now that I was carrying the next generation of Malfoys in my uterus it strung something deep within my chest. A part of me wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that I had a name and that he ought to use it. But I knew if I yelled at him it wouldn't really do any good. He had called me by my last name my whole life and I doubted my having a small temper tantrum would change any of that.

Gripping my books as tightly as I could against my chest almost like it was a lifeline I pressed my back against the wall on the opposite side of the window from him. I took a moment to glance up and down the hall, trying desperately to make sure that there was no one around that could overhear our conversation. The last thing I wanted was gossip.

"Weasley?"

"Yes?" Instantly my attention was back on him, eyes meeting his.

"You said you needed to speak to me. You were rather insistent. So talk."

"Oh….right." I moistened my bottom lip with my tongue, trying to find the right words to say. "I…just found out something rather interesting."

"And what might that be?"

"I'm pregnant, Malfoy."

"Well, good for you. Can't say this isn't a bit of a shock and all, but why is it you're telling _me_ of all people?"

"Because you're the father."

"Not possible."

"Oh, I wish I could say you were right. But….well….there is actually a funny story behind all of this."

"Somehow I doubt I'll find this amusing at all."

I didn't like the tone in his voice. He sounded annoyed, like he thought I was playing some kind of a game with him. If only I _was_ playing a game my life would be so much easier. But this wasn't a game. Sadly this was very serious. I was in fact carrying the spawn of Scorpius Malfoy inside of me and he didn't believe me. Not that I blamed him.

"I hate to break it to you, Weasley, but I think you stopped paying attention at some point when they explained where it was babies came from. See, we'd have to have shagged in order for me to have gotten you pregnant. We never did."

"I'm aware that we've never shagged, Malfoy."

"Then what are you playing at?"

"I'm not playing at anything. I'm pregnant and the baby just happens to be yours."

"This is getting less and less amusing by the minute." He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, closing his eyes. I can't honestly say I wouldn't have been just as frustrated if I was him, but frustrated or not the facts were the facts.

"I'm not trying to be amusing, Malfoy."

"Alright, for the sake of arguments I'll say that I believe you about this baby being mine. Would you care explaining to me exactly how that would be possible?"

"Well….like I said, that's a funny story."

"Oh, please. Humor me." He dropped his hand down and met my eyes again, openly defiant and disbelieving. This wasn't going to be good.

"Well….before third year I went to Diagon Alley and was wandering around the bookstore. I found this old book that was supposed to be a whole group of jokes and prank. They're spells and potions and the like."

"I assume there's a point to this little story?"

"Must you be so impatient?"

"Forgive me if right now I find my patience to be running thin."

I pursed my lips at him, more than annoyed by his attitude. But at the same time I understood why he was frustrated. I would have been if I were him. "There _is_ a point. I bought the book. I didn't think any of them would work. But every once in a while I would try out the spells or the potions. Some would work. Some wouldn't. Usually the small ones that took no effort would actually work out."

"So?"

"So, I got bored one night and there was a spell I decided to try out. I misread it."

"What does that mean?"

"I thought the spell was supposed to make the person you were thinking of become pregnant. I mean, I didn't think it was going to work because the complex ones never did. And besides, I was thinking of a guy, you know? And guys can't get pregnant. But I did the spell anyway, trying to just relieve my boredom. But I read the spell wrong. If you're a guy and you're thinking of someone they can end up pregnant by the man. If a woman is doing the spell and thinks of a guy she can get pregnant by them."

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"I was thinking of you because I thought it'd be funny. You know, the idea of you being pregnant being such a stuck up prat. Only since I read it wrong…that meant I ended up pregnant. And the baby is yours."

"And why should I believe that?"

I had known that he probably wouldn't believe me. It did seem like a rather unbelievable story if I didn't know for a fact it was true. But I had come prepared. So, I pulled one of the books out the stack pressed against my chest and held it out to him. The binding was fraying from age and the pages were yellowed, but it was still in decent condition.

He took it from me the moment I held it out to him and began flipping through it, eyes dancing across the pages. It felt like my heart was going to pound right out of my chest. Somehow this was more nerve wracking than actually telling him had been. He was looking over the pages with intensity, trying to find the spell I was referring to.

I knew when he found it though because he stopped turning the pages and gazed down at it intently, eyebrows drawing together. His eyes danced over the page and then jumped back up to meet my eyes, then back down to the page, his gaze becoming more and more intense with each and every pass. "This is serious, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it is."

"And now you're pregnant?"

"Yes."

"Are you absolutely positive?"

"Yes, absolutely positive. I made sure before I worried about it. I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't."

"Merlin." He let out a slow breath, closing the book. "You're pregnant."

"Yes."

"And because of this spell the baby happens to be mine."

"Yes."

"Shit." He closed his eyes and slammed the book down on the sill of the window. "This is just…fucking great."

I couldn't help but flinch at the tone of voice. He was pissed but I wasn't sure if he was pissed at me or at the situation. Either way he was rather annoyed with what was going on.

I didn't blame him for being frustrated with the situation. I was too. I hadn't exactly planed on becoming pregnant this early in my life. Nor did I plan on having a baby with Scorpius Malfoy of all people. I was sure my father wouldn't be at all pleased with the idea of the other grandfather of his first grandchild being his enemy from his school years. And I could only imagine how Scorpius' father would feel with me being the mother of his first grandchild. I had gotten myself into an awful mess.

I could almost hear the whispers that would be going on behind my back, feel the eyes all looking at me. They'd all think of me as some hideous cow. And they'd never believe it was a spell. They'd think I somehow managed to seduce Scorpius into sleeping with me and as thus became pregnant. And though if the circumstances were normal ones than they'd be right- about my sleeping with him that is. I would never have been a seducer though. The seduced perhaps, but never the seducer. That just wasn't in me. I wasn't interest enough in the idea of sexual contact to go out of my way to try to convince someone to sleep with me.

I couldn't deny, however, that I found Scorpius to be an attractive guy. The idea of sleeping with him had never actually crossed my mind. Even now I couldn't imagine sleeping with him. It was just beyond my comprehension. He was beyond out of my league. He was too different from me, too pretentious and too prideful to ever be even my darkest sexual fantasy.

He let out another slow breath and opened his eyes, gazing over at me. "What are we going to do now?"

"We?"

"Well, since technically speaking this is my child, what are we going to do?"

"I'm having the baby." Shouldn't that have been an obvious answer? If I wasn't going to have this baby I never would have gone to speak to him. And though I didn't want my life to be this complicated I had gotten myself into this situation. This child deserved a life. Just because I had made a stupid mistake and read the spell wrong it didn't mean that I should punish it.

"You're having the baby?"

"Yes." My answer left no room for questions. I knew he wouldn't like the answer, but it was possible that he could at least accept it. "I don't expect anything from you, Malfoy. I don't expect you to be a part of this child's life or even be near me. I just wanted to let you know what was going on. It wouldn't be fair for me keep something this big from you. You have every right to know."

"Do your parents know yet?"

"No. I haven't told anyone but you. I thought you should be the first one to find out that you were going to be a father."

"Your parents aren't going to be happy."

"I know. But I don't know if I'll tell them who the father is. Just that I got myself into a complicated situation and now they're going to be grandparents."

"Of course you're going to tell them." The tone was just as serious as mine had been when I said I was going to keep the baby. "They'll want to know. And they should know. If you don't tell them it'll only make you look like some slag that sleeps around, you know. And though I have no doubt they'd love you regardless they'd never look at you the same again."

"But if I tell them they'll want you to be involved in the child's life. They'll do anything they have to in order to make sure that happens."

"Oh, I don't doubt that."

"Then I don't understand."

"I don't know what kind of a person you think I am, Weasley. And usually I couldn't care less. But you have to understand that of all the things I may be irresponsible isn't one of them. If I'm the father of this child than it would be in everyone's best interest for me to be involved."

"Your father isn't going to be happy about this, you know. He'll be very upset. More than upset. He'll be furious."

"I know he won't be very happy. But he'll just have to deal with the situation at hand just like you and I and your parents will have to deal with it. What's done is done. We can't change what's already come to pass. But we can try to make the best out of a less than ideal situation."

"Are you sure you want to be involved, Malfoy?"

"I made my decision." He picked up the book and held it out to me, long fingers holding it loosely. "You're going to have the baby and I'm going to be involved with the child's life." As he handed the book to me I could see a smile slowly creeping across his face. "I must say, Weasley, you have put me into a very interesting situation."

"The situation is rather interesting for me as well."

"I'd imagine so." Straightening himself out he shook his hair out of his face. "Let me know when you plan to tell your parents about the new addition to the family. I'd love to be there."

"You mean you want to see them get upset."

"Oh, no. I just want to see how they take the lovely, lovely news."

He made his way back down the hall to his common room. As I watched his back I couldn't help but wonder how I was going to handle this mess I had gotten myself in to.

And how much my parents were going to want to kill me for this.

Merlin was my life becoming a mess.


	3. Games And Flirtation Situations

When I woke up in the morning it felt like I had swallowed rotten meat. I felt the bile rising in the back of my throat and instantly knew I had to get the bathroom or else I'd end up vomiting all over the floor. And as far as I was concerned that would have been a big red flag to all of my friends that something seriously unusual was going on with me.

So I slid on my slippers and made my way as quickly as I could down to the bathroom and emptied my stomach contents into the toilet. It felt like I was going to start throwing up my own internal organs by the time I was done and able to lean back against the stall door and savor the coolness of the metal against the back of my head. Because by then not only did my throat hurt from the effort of expelling my stomach contents but I could feel the distinct throb in my temple of a headache coming on. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

By the time I had been able to pull myself together and prepare for the day I was nearly late for my first class and by the end of the school day I felt like I was going to collapse from exhaustion. Waking up to vomit was definitely not a good way to begin your day if you wanted to feel fine by the end of it. And furthermore every time anyone even mentioned food I felt like I was going to vomit all over again. Unfortunately I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up.

But as soon as the day was over I was ready to lay down for a nap. Unfortunately for me Lily wanted me to come with her to watch the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor. The only question was: who was I going to be cheering for? Because while I was in Gryffindor the father of my unborn child- the one no one knew about- was on the Slytherin Quidditch team just as his father had been. And I highly doubted he would have appreciated it if I was hoping for him to lose.

Lily convinced me to go with her however. It was probably easy for her to convince me because I was determined to act as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on with me. And if I had refused to accompany my dear cousin to the game I was pretty sure that she would have figured out something was wrong.

So, I had followed her to the Quidditch pitch and took a seat between her and Albus. Al smiled at me slightly as I took my seat, his mouth turning up in a crooked line. Normally he would have been out on the field as well but the last game they played with Slytherin Al had gotten into a rather large fight with one of the team members. Because of that he wasn't allowed to play against Slytherin again for now. But it meant for us that we got to be graced with the presence of his lovely company.

"Think we'll kick their arses, Rosie?"

I couldn't help but smile at Al's question. "I'm sure we'll hold our own just fine, Al."

"Just hold our own?"

"Well, they are a rather good team. I'm sure it'll be a very tough match for both sides, you know." It was the closest thing I could come to say that sounded supportive of Gryffindor's team without actually trying to hope that Scorpius' team didn't win. I knew that eventually my attitude towards Slytherin would start to strike people as odd but for now I was trying to play it all as cool as I could and hope that no one noticed anything different about me. Odds were against that, of course, but I was willing to try.

During most of the match I had managed to barely keep my stomach contents from sloshing around. All of the excitement of the game and the rapid movements and voices screaming was doing very little to make my stomach calm down. If anything the excitement made the sloshing much worse and I could almost taste the bile on the back of my tongue. Swallowing down the urge to throw up was becoming rather annoying as time went on.

Watching the people buzzing past me on their brooms was starting to make me sick. Every once in awhile I had to close my eyes to keep myself from getting dizzy. But unfortunately I had to keep opening my eyes again just to be sure that no one would notice that I was acting strange. Hiding this situation was becoming rather annoying but I didn't really have any other option at the time.

And that's when things on the pitch suddenly took a strange turn. One of the bludgers went spiraling towards Scorpius and hit him his shoulder sending him off of his broomstick and to the ground. I stood instantly, gazing over the edge of the stands and at him on the ground as the referee blew their whistle and went over to check on him.

At first he lay on the ground, not moving. Next to me Al stood, gazing over the edge with me. "Bloody good hit."

"I suppose."

"What's the matter? Don't like seeing the opposing team get hit?"

"I don't want anyone to get hurt badly during the game, Al. Doesn't matter which team they're on, I'd still hope they were alright."

"I'm sure he's fine."

I was hoping he was right, but at first Scorpius wasn't moving and I was pretty sure he wasn't going to for a while. Then he stirred on the ground shaking his hair out of his face like he was in a daze. He looked around the pitch, eyes jumping across the grass beneath him and then up into the stands. Our eyes met briefly as the referee began talking to him.

I don't think he registered at first what she was trying to say because he didn't answer. His eyes just remained locked in my direction until she laid a hand on his arm. Then his eyes went to her and after a moment he nodded slightly and she motioned that he was fine and would be continuing on in the game. I couldn't help it. I let out a sigh of relief.

Al laughed, nudging me with his arm. "I told you he'd be alright, Rosie. And here you are acting as though you just watched your true love being attacked."

"Very funny," I said dryly.

"Oh, lighten up. You know I don't mean anything by it."

"Of course I do." Slowly I backed up and sat back in my seat. But through the entire rest of the game I kept as close of an eye on Scorpius as I could, hoping his injury was as mild as he was trying to play it off as. But if his injury was serious he didn't let on to it because he was playing with the same vigor as he had earlier in the game.

Admittedly Slytherin played a very good game but in the end Gryffindor won with the capture of the snitch. On either side of me both of my cousins cheered the victory and playing the supportive Gryffindor.

Lily linked her arm through mine, leaning against me with a broad smile across her face. "We won, Rosie."

I smiled slightly at her, nodding a bit. "I know."

"There's going to be a bit of a celebration back in the common room. Are you coming?"

"I think I'll catch up with you a bit later, Lily. I have a bit of a headache and I think the air would do me some good."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'll catch up with you later."

Lily nodded and headed off after her brother. But as soon as I saw her heading off I felt a wave of guilt washing over me for lying to her. She had been, for some time, one of my closest friends besides being my family and lying to her left a nasty taste in my mouth. But I was concerned now for Scorpius after being injured. Amazing how this situation had made me unable to be objective when it came to him.

As the people all began to file away from the pitch I made my way over to the area where the Slytherin team would be exiting. I had never been very good at sneaking around nor had I ever really had a reason to do so in the past but at the moment I had to try my best. If we were going to be keeping our situation a secret than it stood to reason that I had no reason to be speaking to Scorpius. We weren't dating and we weren't even friends so it would arouse suspicion. And yet there I was, waiting for him in the best hiding spot I could manage to find so I could simply ask if his shoulder was seriously hurt.

It only took a few minutes for me to hear his voice as he addressed his fellow teammates on the way out. My plan was to wait until the rest of them had left and then make myself known but as soon as the voices began to fade another one came. This one was much more feminine, much more flirtatious. "Oh, are you hurt dreadfully?"

Peering around from where I had taken to hiding I saw Leera Zabini fawning over Scorpius. Leera was the daughter of one of our parents' former classmate, Blaise. Who her mother was I wasn't sure- my parents never really spoke of such things. They merely commented that they had known her father when I had mentioned her name.

Like Scorpius' own father Blaise had been a Slytherin and like him Blaise had considered my father and his entire family to be blood traitors. Pureblood mentality, though not as strong as it was back then, was still strong amongst some of the inner circles of the pureblood elite. So it wouldn't have come as a surprise to me if that meant that Leera found me- the daughter of a muggle born and a blood traitor- as an inferior species of witch. And though she and I had never actually spoken I had no doubt that if we had the conversation would not have been a pleasant one.

I had no reason to feel jealous if I was honest with myself. True, I was carrying the child of the man she was so deftly fawning over but as it were Scorpius and I weren't in any kind of a relationship. In essence he was free to flirt, date or shag whoever he wanted to. But somehow I couldn't help but feel jealousy start to boil within me.

For as long as I could remember Leera had taken to trying to seduce Scorpius. It started back when we were first years and had continued until this day. But Leera was a pretty girl with slightly dark skin and blue eyes and I couldn't help but wonder if there had ever been some kind of a relationship between the two.

If there had been I knew without a doubt that his father would have supported it and not because her father was a former housemate of his and Leera was a fellow Slytherin but because if Blaise hated muggle borns as much as I had heard that meant Leera's mother had most likely been pureblood which in turn would make Leera one herself. And considering the Malfoys stand on the purity of blood she would have been a far better choice for Scorpius in his parents' eyes than I was.

Scorpius' gaze moved slowly over towards her and then down to the hand she had clamped down onto his arm. He made no move to get her to let him go but at the same time he didn't look particularly thrilled that she was holding onto him the way she was. "I'm alright," he told her evenly. "Just a bit sore."

"Oh, you poor thing." A smile spread across her face and even I had to admit that she looked lovely when she smiled. "I'm sure you can get fixed up right away in the hospital wing. I can walk with you if you'd like."

_As if he needs an escort to get there_, I thought bitterly. _He's perfectly capable of getting there all on his own._

But Scorpius smiled at her and patted the hand that had clamped down onto his arm. "I think I'll be just fine, Leera." There was something in his voice that I didn't like, almost like he was flirting back with her and the jealousy returned. I was being irrational but I didn't care. I was jealous and that was the pure and simple fact.

I no longer cared how Scorpius was feeling because all of this jealousy swimming through me was making my head spin. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain standing so I turned away, pressing my back against a nearby tree and taking a deep breath. It was time to head back to the dormitory and get some rest.

Stepping away I stumbled, snapping a branch under my foot. Cursing softly I hoped no one would hear it but I knew they had, especially when Scorpius turned and asked in his most calm voice, "Who's out there?"

If I had been feeling better I would have run but I couldn't muster up the energy. Instead I turned to face them, swallowing slowly to get rid of the lump that was starting to form in my throat.

Leera's lip curled up in disgust as she saw it was me. She shook her dark hair out of her face and looked me over as though I were a bug. "What are you doing here, Weasley?"

"Just going for a walk." The lie slipped out as naturally as the truth would have.

But Scorpius' eyebrows drew together with either confusion or concern- I couldn't tell which. "You look very pale, Weasley." His voice didn't hold the same malice that Leera's had. It actually sounded rather empty.

"Do I?" I blinked several times against the blurriness that was beginning to take over my vision. "Lack of sleep. No concern of yours, Malfoy."

"Come on. Let's leave Weasley to her own devices." Leera's grip on Scorpius' arm tightened.

I don't know what he said to her after that. I saw his lips moving but couldn't register his voice in my head because the blurriness had gotten worse and the world had started spinning. I opened my mouth to ask everything to return to normal when my legs gave out beneath me and I went tumbling to the ground.

My head made contact with the earth sending a shooting pain around to my forehead and down my neck. I'm pretty sure I let out some kind of a pained sound but the world was starting bleed black.

I could have sworn as my vision started to die out entirely I saw Scorpius' face leaning over mine. But I must have been mistaken.


	4. Conditions And Annoyances

The first thing I registered was that my head didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have. Having passed out in the middle of the school grounds one would think my head would be throbbing but luckily for me it was only a dull pain in the back of my skull. It wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling but not a horrible one either. Guess I was lucky.

The second thing I registered was voices. I could vaguely recognize one but I couldn't actually pick out who it was. Knowing I should recognize it and being unable to was rather frustrating to be honest. More frustrating than I could actually handle well with a throbbing headache but there was really nothing I could do about that.

_"She alright?"_

"She will be. Just give her a little space to breathe now. Don't go crowding in on her or she won't enough oxygen."

"It isn't like I'm suffocating her. I'm just standing here."

"Oh, honestly."

Yes, definitely knew one of those voices.

Opening one eye slowly I waited a moment for it to adjust to the blinding light. Normally the light would have been fine but with my head feeling as horrible as it was and having just passed out it was blinding. "You know, I don't know if anyone told you, but given your current situation it would be a good idea to take better care of yourself. Passing out can cause a lot of damage." Now I knew why I recognized that voice.

"Your concern is staggering, Malfoy. Honestly, don't strain yourself with worry." I sat up slowly, pressing a hand to my forehead to stop my vision from swimming. Something felt like it was sloshing around inside of my skull. Not a very comforting feeling.

"You gave us quite a fright, Miss Weasley." Madame Pomfrey had been aging while my parents were attending Hogwarts but she was still working there as the nurse. She gazed at me from behind her dark eyes with what could be most easily described as compassion. "How are you feeling?"

"My head hurts a bit."

"That's to be expected. Would have hurt a great deal more had it not been for Mr. Malfoy, I'm sure."

"Him?" I turned my head slightly to gaze at the boy in question. Scorpius was leaning against the hospital bed next to mine, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He looked extremely relaxed and passive.

At my questioning glance he shrugged, a practiced and elegant gesture. He seemed so careless it was almost startling. "Lucky for you, Weasley, I was close enough to cast a quick spell. It stopped you from hitting your head too hard."

"Why would you do that?"

"Contrary to what you may believe my idea of a good time isn't watching someone fall over and crack their skull open. Far too messy."

Madame Pomfrey made a clicking sound with her tongue as though she didn't enjoy us bickering in her domain. "If you can keep an eye on her for a moment Mr. Malfoy I'll fetch her the potion I prepared."

"I don't have to be anywhere," was his monotone reaction. She must have taken that as an agreement to watch over me because she turned on heel and headed towards the back of the hospital wing. "You must be aware by now that she will know of your…situation. Which also means that it will only be a matter of time before your family does."

"Don't be absurd, Malfoy."

"I'm being logical," he argued. "It isn't every day that Hogwarts has a pregnant student as I'm sure you must be aware. Both the school and your family have to be aware of such things for them to be able to make sure you stay in good health. Any person with half of a brain would be able to figure that one out, Weasley."

I pursed my lips together. This wasn't what I was planning to have happen. Of course I hadn't planned to become a mother anytime soon either. It was only two weeks until Christmas holiday and I had been counting on telling both my family and the proper people at Hogwarts of my condition. Now it seemed as though I was going to have to tell them ages before I was prepared to handle it. It was rather disinheriting. "Bloody hell."

"That's one way to put it." He uncrossed and re-crossed his legs, switching which ankle was placed over the other. "Apparently carrying a magical child can be very strenuous on a body. You need to take special potions in order to keep yourself and the child. Madame Pomfrey prepared a potion for you to take. She thinks you passed out because you weren't taking anything."

"Damn."

"You know, I think that knock on the head took away all of your eloquence, Weasley."

"And since when are _you_ so eloquent?"

"I'm not trying to be eloquent actually. I'm merely informing you of what you missed while you were sleeping."

"I'd hardly call that sleeping."

"Rather close to it then. Either way there wasn't even the remote possibility that you would have heard what was said about your situation given your state. As such I was filling you in."

"Can you stop calling it a state?"

"Excuse me?"

"It isn't a state," I grumbled, folding my arms over my chest, just under my breasts. It had become a habit when I was annoyed. As a matter-of-fact I had been doing it for so long I can't even remember when I started it. "That sounds so horrible."

"What would you rather I call it?" He arched one of his pale eyebrows so it was heading towards his hairline.

"You can call it exactly what it is given there is no one else here: a pregnancy."

"Whatever you say, Weasley. But while you're gestating that thing-"

"It isn't a _thing_. It happens to be a baby."

"Thank you for being so kind as to inform me what they're called, Weasely. I wouldn't have been able to figure that one out on my own."

"You're such a horrid prat."

"Then why are you going through with having a child I am apparently the father of?"

"Because your being a prat isn't a good reason to get rid of my baby."

"I see." But he didn't and I knew it. I hadn't really expected him to understand at all. I doubt he honestly cared about the child growing inside of me. Maybe he felt like since he was the father- technically- he had to at least fane interest in the situation or something to that effect. Of course the simple way to find out what he was thinking would have been to ask him but that was out of the question. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer actually. And if I didn't I was pretty sure I would hex him into oblivion which wouldn't have gone over too well with Madame Pomfrey, or the rest of the staff at Hogwarts. "Quite done complaining, Weasley?"

"I'm not complaining." He was beginning to be infuriating. "I just think you're acting like a spoiled little prat and I don't appreciate you intentionally instigating me. Getting upset while pregnant isn't conducive to good health. Or so I've read."

"Somehow I'm not even slightly surprised you read up on this already."

"It doesn't hurt to be prepared, Malfoy. Not that you would understand that phenomena. But yes, I've read up on it a bit. I just haven't had much time to read everything there is to know." And I didn't want to admit that I hadn't read much up on carrying a _wizarding_ child, only a regular child. Though I should have anticipated that there would be a different between the two. After all, carrying a child that'll most likely be magical _should_ be different, unless they're muggle born. Or so I would assume. Oh Merlin, who am I kidding? I'm not even sure what I was thinking anymore.

"Oh, I know what it means to be prepared." I didn't like the smirk he had on his face. I was almost one hundred percent sure that he was referring to something perverse. And not just because he was Scorpius Malfoy but because he was a teenage boy. Even my brother and cousins had a tendency to make sexual references at almost the drop of a hat. It had to have something to do with all that testosterone that made them able to think of sex that often. And pretty much make almost anything you say sound sexual or disturbing. Suddenly I hoped very much that this baby was a girl and not a boy. I wouldn't love it any less were it a boy but I wasn't sure I could handle another person making sex references daily.

"You're disgusting, Malfoy."

"Says the girl carrying my child."

"I may be carrying your child, Malfoy, but I didn't lower myself to the level of shagging you. To put it quite simply: you're not good enough for me. Not by a long shot."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, it is." I sounded so sure of myself but I really wasn't. I had already been able to admit it to myself that I found Malfoy attractive. Very attractive. I wasn't exactly interested in shagging him of course but he was still attractive. Mostly in an infuriating way. He was the kind of attractive that makes you want to watch him but also want to smash your head against the wall in frustration. How was I going to handle carrying this man's child? And what would I do if this child inside of me turned out just like their father? Oh Merlin, help me. Please, please help me.

"Who knew you had such a conceited view of yourself?"

"I'm not being conceded," I argued. He was really starting to give me a splitting headache.

"If you say so." He waved a hand at me, effectively signaling he was bored now with this conversation. How lovely it must feel to think you can dismiss people so easily. Must come from that whole pureblood thing. And I was about to point out that he couldn't just shut me up like one of his little fans with a wave of his hand when he continued talking. "So, how are you going to handle telling your family about the _baby_?"

He said the word like it was something disgusting. This just kept getting _better_. "I don't understand how that's any of your business."

"Well, considering this is my child I think it is most definitely my business."

"I don't know _how_ I'm going to handle this."

"Then you should think about it rather quickly before Madame Pomfrey makes the decision for you."

That was the _last_ thing I wanted. If anyone was going to tell my family it had to be me. But I wasn't sure how to go about telling them their grandchild has been fathered by the son of their worst enemy. I can imagine it wouldn't be a very pleasant conversation. Not a pleasant conversation at all. But it was one that had to happen, no matter what. "I understand that." I pinched the bridge of my nose, tired and stressed and just wanting to stop the world for a moment and make sure that I had plenty of time to work things out in my head.

"Do you? Well then, do tell: how are you going to handle this?"

"Must you be so bloody difficult?"

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Weasley. I'm trying to make you see that you have two options: convince Madame Pomfrey that you're going to tell your family of the news yourself or she'll do it for you. There's absolutely no way out of this."

"I _know_!" I surprised even myself by how much it sounded like a hiss when it came out. I wasn't up to handling Malfoy's attitude today. Not at all. But apparently I was stuck dealing with it until Madame Pomfrey came back, which hopefully would be soon.

"Then if you _know_ you should hurry up and figure out what you're going to do. I know you don't want to and hell, I'm not looking for the inevitable event of telling my parents either but you're running out of options, Weasley." He let out a laugh that held absolutely no amusement. "Scratch that: you're completely out of options by now."

"I know, I know." I pinched the bridge of my nose harder. "Alright. Christmas holiday is coming quickly. I'll tell my parents during that."

"I don't think they'll handle the news all that well."

"I don't doubt that. But I'd rather them hear it from me than from someone else, like Madame Pomfrey. I can tell them to it my way, break it to them easy."

"Are you going to tell them about my part in all of this?"

"I hope I don't have to yet." It may not have been the nicest thing to say but there's nothing like being honest. I was hoping that my parents would already think they were having enough to handle with the knowledge they were about to become grandparents that they wouldn't ask about the baby's father.

"Somehow I don't think that'll happen," he said blandly. I hated how he could hide whatever was going on inside of his head, how he could speak like he had no emotions whatsoever. "They'll most likely ask."

"And if they ask I'll be honest…and then watch my father's head explode."

In a normal situation the idea of my father's head exploding with rage or annoyance would have been one of the most amusing things I could possibly picture in my head. But given the situation it would mean I was a disappointment to him and I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle that.

"That's something I'd pay to be able to see."

"You're not amusing, Malfoy."

"I'm not trying to be. I'd find it rather amusing to see your father's face get as red as his hair."

"Just…shut up." I was tired. Tired of worrying and talking to Malfoy. I was tired of everything. "I need quiet to figure out how to tell them. So when Madame Pomfrey comes back just…just go. Okay?"

"With pleasure." Bloody prat. At that moment I swore he'd be the death of me. No question about it.

As if I had summoned her with the power of my mind Madame Pomfrey appeared then, walking towards me with a steaming glass. I didn't have to see the actual contents or smell it to know I wasn't going to like the taste of it. Just the fact that it was hot enough to cause that much steam was enough for me.

"Here you go, Miss Weasley. Bottoms up." She handed me that glass and I took it like I was about to drink poison. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was going to be almost as unpleasant as it was when I had thrown up that morning. But I really didn't have a choice in the matter. So I took the glass from her as she spoke up again. "Thank you for watching Miss Weasley, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'll be leaving now." He pushed himself away from the hospital bed, stretching his legs out in front of him for a moment before righting himself. He did it so elegantly it almost seemed like he was a robot.

"Yes, yes. Go ahead."

He met my eyes from over the glass I had brought up to my lips. There was a certain amusement dancing in the gray depths of his eyes. I wasn't sure if he was amused I would have to drink this concoction or at the idea of my telling my family I was carrying his child. Either way I didn't like it.

Then he turned and left the room, moving in long and even strides.

"Well, go on. Drink up."

I took the potion- which didn't smell or look as bad as I thought it would- and tilted the cup, pouring the potion into my mouth slowly, swallowing as quickly as I could so I wouldn't have to taste it. Now I just had to convince her to let _me_ be the one to tell my family about the baby.

Easier said than done.


	5. Of Prats And Kept Secrets

Trying to keep a secret from Lily was always rather easy for me to do. Keeping a secret from Albus on the other hand proved to be quite a difficult task. The boy, all and all, was overly suspicious of no one but his family, as though only we could ever be up to something. "It's the Weasley blood," he would say. "It makes us _all_ get into trouble. We can't help it. It's just who we are." It was all a bunch of rubbish, of course, but it made him feel better to think that we were all that predictable. In all honesty I didn't think any of my family was predictable but maybe that was _my_ disillusion. We all have them.

Like, for example, my thinking that I could find a simple, easy way to break my current predicament to my family. That, I figured out after running several scenarios through my head, wasn't even a remote possibility. As a matter-of-fact the odds were that no matter _how_ I opted to put it my parents would go full-out mental over this whole situation and probably wouldn't even care that at least it wasn't like I was _fornicating with a Malfoy_. The fact that I was carrying the grandchild of their biggest childhood bully, the bane of their existence from school would be enough to cause irreparable damage to the trusting relationship I had with them.

Lily, of course, had asked me so many questions about what happened to me when I was released from the hospital wing that I was beginning to run out of answers for her. in truth I had been repeating the same basic answer each time, each time adding tiny little details to the whole story to try to satisfy her curiosity and while she seemed to believe that I had just worn myself out she _still_ was asking about it though it seemed to be more out of concern than disbelief. Albus, however, was another story.

Albus firmly believed I was lying through my teeth about the whole incident though he couldn't really give me any reasoning behind his suspicion other than the whole theory about Weasley blood and the mischief it caused the carriers to get into. And while I was glad that he wasn't pushing the subject it was getting more and more difficult with each day to hide the fact that I was lying from him because he'd just get this _look_ like he _knew_ I was keeping a secret and was just waiting for me to slip up so he could point at me and exclaim that he knew it and then force me to tell him the truth so around him I was being extra cautious and I was making up whatever excuse I could think of to slip away from them so I could take the potion I needed to take on a daily basis which was becoming increasingly difficult to do as well. So, in a lot of ways I was looking forward to being able to explain this whole comedy of errors to my parents so the secret was out there but at the same time I was dreading it. I don't know if you've ever felt two ways about something before but it can be thoroughly exhausting, I can tell you that much.

And dealing with Malfoy hadn't gotten any easier since the whole revelation of my carrying his offspring was thrust into his world. As a matter-of-fact, most of the time between the whole mess of my ending up in the hospital wing and everyone going home for Christmas holidays we barely spoke and for the most part he didn't really acknowledge my existence. It was a bit strange considering he had seemed to want to be updated on things, wanted to know about my plans to talk to my parents about this whole mess. Of course I could have easily misinterpreted his intentions towards that whole thing. He may have just enjoyed the idea of my father's head exploding, the idea of them becoming rather upset over the whole thing. At the same time it made me wonder if he plans on telling his own parents about this whole mess and if so when. Would he be telling them over the holiday break like I planned to do with my own parents? Or would he wait until after I was as large as a house? Or would he wait until the child was actually practically waving at the world to announce its prescience? Or would he even tell them then? Would he just decide to keep it this big, dark secret and rather pretend it didn't exist rather than admit to the fact that his child was also mine? There were more questions swirling around in my head than answers and it wasn't really a comforting situation when I was honest with myself, almost worse than the whole mess to begin with. Almost. I was pretty sure that it couldn't get much worse than it already was.

So, the entire trip back home was mostly spent- by me at least- trying to avoid Albus' prying gaze which wasn't an easy thing to do. It seemed that with every single word that I let out of my mouth he would give me that look to tell me that he knew I had a secret and he had made it his mission to figure out what that secret was. I, of course, tried to pretend that it wasn't bothering me and would smile each time he looked at me like that as though I were trying to get him to understand that I wasn't hiding anything but that didn't really work. He didn't believe it for one minute which was become more and more frustrating with each try but what was I really going to do? Blurt out to him that I was pregnant and trying to figure out how I was to tell my parents about it? That wouldn't have gone over too well and furthermore we were in the prescience of our siblings and cousins on the way home. Wouldn't that have just been bloody brilliant? The last thing I needed was for my little brother to know about this mess before my parents because he would, without a doubt, run up to my parents and tell them the instant that he saw them and, well, he most likely wouldn't break it to them easily. Not to upset them, of course. No, he'd do it more to get on my nerves than anything else, a pastime which Hugo was very good at. Younger siblings, I knew, could be a pain in the arse when they set their minds to it which is probably why I was seriously considering having this be my one and only child. My mother was an only child and she was perfectly well adjusted. Who says you need siblings to have a full and rich home life? Because whoever said that needs to have their heads examined because they must be completely and totally mental.

My mother was at the train station to pick us up, her curly mass of hair pulled away from her face by a barrette as she stood there huddled up in her coat. She was quite beautiful to me but not in the way that Aunt Fleur was. She had this beautiful simplistic look to her that you had to actually look to see, with clear eyes and a warm smile and she had come to pick up us and since Uncle Henry had to go to Hungary to speak at a conference and Aunt Ginny was with them she was picking up Lily and Al, too. My aunt and uncle would be back tomorrow, before Christmas actually came but for now they weren't around and that meant that my parents were in charge of taking care of their children which meant a whole day with Lily and Al pestering me. It wasn't a very appealing idea and though I loved them dearly it made the whole idea of a family vacation to be quite testing.

Mum greeted my brother and I with her arms spread open, enveloping me in a hug that was nearly bone crushing the moment we were close enough for her to do so, her swaying me slightly from side to side like she was rocking a small child to try to get them to go to sleep. It made my stomach churn uncomfortably. It wasn't really her fault that my stomach was in such a state, it was all my own stupidity and that damn spell's fault but I couldn't exactly just blurt out that I had morning sickness and that this was only making things worse so instead of letting it show I swallowed against the wave of nausea coursing through me and returned her embrace.

"Hello, love," she said, releasing me enough that she could hold me at arms length and look me over and for the hundredth time I was eternally grateful that I wouldn't start showing for a bit yet because that would be a hard thing to explain to her as well. _Gee, sorry Mum. I know I should have told you I was expecting before but it was so difficult to figure out how to I decided to wait until my body rounded out and told you itself. You understand, don't you?_ Not bloody likely.

"Hello, Mum." I had no idea what it was she was hoping to see when she looked at me like that but I was starting to feel uncomfortable under her gaze.

"Oi, don't I get a hello too, Mum." And then my little brother was elbowing me to the side so he could get our mother's attention and for the first time in a long time I was grateful for the bloody prat being in my life. It got me temporarily out of inspection and allowed me to step over to the side while my brother prattled on and on about something or other. I think he mentioned Quidditch in there somewhere which meant Al would most likely join in on the conversation at any moment but I could be positive. I was too focused on going over to retrieve my luggage and running this whole announcement plan through my head again. Nothing seemed to be a very good idea and no outcome my brain would let me concoct was a pleasant one either.

I left my mother to greet my brother and cousins and made my way over to where my luggage was, tightening the sash that held my coat together around me waist. Winter had come with a vengeance and the chill was becoming nearly unbearable. Unfortunately I didn't have the luck of avoiding my family entirely because there was James, a fresh graduate of only a few months- though he would argue that he was mature beyond his years and as such was more intelligent than the others he graduated with at the end of this past year- lifting up some of our baggage.

He turned to look at me, his face blank for a moment before a slow smile spread across his handsome face- and yes, even though I disliked it when my friends would drool over my bloody cousin I couldn't even begin to deny that both James and Al were atheistically pleasing to the eye and couldn't really blame them for their crushes- and he put down his sister's bag, opening his arms to me and wrapping me up in a tight hug. I was thankful that he, however, opted not to sway me from side to side in the same manner as my mother had.

"Good to see you, Rosie," he whispers into my hair, bent at the torso to hug me properly. He had shot up to a staggering height when he hit fifteen and sometimes when I was standing with him it made me feel very much like a small child which though not a conscious effort on his part was still the effect. "Been behaving yourself?"

"That's the question you should be asking Al," came my automatic response though had I been behaving? My current state would scream 'no' although I hadn't actually done anything _horrible_ to end up in such a state. It had been a comedy of errors of epic proportion.

He released me and straightened himself up, narrowing his eyes at me as he watched me, his eyes so much like Uncle Harry's nearly piercing in their intensity. "Something's troubling you," he says, a definite statement as opposed to a question. If Al was good at reading me than James was damn near bloody psychic because while I could sometimes fool Al I never had any such luck with James. When he looked at me it was as though he could read my very expression- as disconcerting as that was- and I could never hide how I was feeling from him. The detail of it would remain a mystery to him but the basic situation would be obvious. "You going to fill me in, Rosie?"

"I don't particularly feel like sharing," I told him, not a single hint of annoyance or malice in my voice, just weariness and exhaustion. This meant a third Potter child to try to convince me to tell them what was going on inside of my head and if this continued much longer I was going to start ripping all of my hair out in bloody clumps. And turning myself bald in such a manner would raise a rather large red flag to my parents.

Bending down I picked up my own bag's handle and extended it so I could wheel it behind me when we all headed towards the car. Of all of her love for the wizarding world my mother still enjoyed her muggle luxuries and I suspect enjoyed my father's fumbling nature with most of them. "Just trying to figure out how to handle a rather personal situation, James."

"Too personal to tell your favorite cousin?" It seemed, I noted, that all of my cousins believed themselves to be my favorite and while I couldn't actually _choose_ a favorite one I never thought it appropriate to correct any of them. It would seem almost cruel to burst their bubbles in such a way.

"Still trying to figure that out, I'm afraid." The only thing that would be good about telling James is that while he is known for his big mouth and his horrid jokes at the same time if he knows something is meant to be kept a secret he'll keep it a secret. I've never seen him even slip up and reveal anything someone has told him in confidence which is more than I could say for his siblings.

He pauses in the act of hoisting his sister's bag over his shoulder, watching me with his calm green eyes like emeralds lit by fire, tilting his head slightly to the side as he surveys me, almost like he can read my thoughts. "Could this be _boy_ trouble?" he asks me softly, an undeniable hint of teasing in his voice.

"If it were only that simple," I mumble in reply under my breath, my eyes jumping over to where my mother is nodding politely to every single thing that Hugo is saying to her, always the encouraging parent. "Let's just say I've gotten myself into a predicament I'm not quite sure how to explain. And that I do believe that most men _are_ bloody prats. Present company only sometimes being an exception. You have your pratty moments."

"We _all_ have the ability to be prats, don't we?" Of course James had a point but there was no need to point that out. If there was one thing no one could deny about James was that the moment you told him he was right or that he had a point he got rather bigheaded about it and would point out for months after that he had been right about that one thing so it was safe to assume he was often right. It got rather annoying rather quickly and I wasn't about to open that particular can of worms. Better to play it safe.

"I'm aware." Looking over at James I thought, for a moment, maybe I could tell him, maybe I could trust him. He was family and my friend and he wouldn't purposely reveal anything to others. He wasn't cruel or malicious or even rude. If I told him this was a secret then he would keep it for me, I knew he would and the truth was right on the tip of her tongue, the urge to tell someone finally besides the accidental father but, in the end, I chickened out. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I wanted to, oh I wanted to so badly but I couldn't get the words to pass my lips. "I'll tell you about it later," I said instead, giving him the best smile I could muster up, telling myself I was an outright coward which was undeniably true right now. "I promise."

"And I intend to hold you to that problem."

The problem was I knew he would. Next time there would be no getting out of telling him. Joy of joys.


	6. Truth Without Freedom

The entire way home it was hell. No one in my family was really bothering me to tell them what was going on with me but I could still feel Al's eyes on me the entire time. Getting to the house was far more satisfying than I had imagined possible but the most horrible part of it was that I couldn't even rush up to my room. If I did then it would be far too obvious that there was something terribly wrong with me. I really didn't want my mother to ask me what was going on. if I had to tell her what was going on I would only hear a lecture from her right now but I would have to repeat the whole thing to my father later on as well and wouldn't that just suck? It's bad enough that my father is going to have a potential coronary when he hears about this but to have to hear about it from the two of them separately? That would just be one of the most horrible things in the world to have to experience. So, I didn't run upstairs but as soon as I got the chance I made my way upstairs as quickly as I could without looking as though I were running for my life.

While unpacking my bag I considered what James had said. There was a very good chance that I could speak to him about my situation and not have to worry that he was going to go around talking about it to the rest of the family. He had always been rather good when it came to keeping secrets so that wasn't really an issue when it came to him. Al would turn around and tell everyone even if he hadn't meant to. He just seemed to have this inability to keep a secret for any of us. He had done it about a million and three times with his siblings let alone his cousins as bad as that sounds. I adore Al, I really do, but I didn't trust him when it came to secrets.

James was different though. He was always, always there for all of us when we really needed someone and to be honest I had considered him one of my closest friends for quite some time. It can sound pathetic when you call one of your family members your best friend or one of your best friends but pathetic or not he has always been one of my closest friends. And at that moment I honestly needed a good friend. This was too much to be handling on my own. If I didn't get the chance to tell someone soon I knew I was going to go mental. Keeping the fact that you're pregnant a secret isn't something that is easily done. With Scorpius and I being the only ones in the world who knew about the tiny little being gestating inside of me was becoming rather stressful. And I wasn't even sure if he was ever, ever going to tell his family about the situation I had gotten us into. If it was difficult for _me_ to tell my family how would it be for him? How was he going to break it to his pureblood parents that the person carrying their grandchild was of mixed blood? And not only that but the child of his father's school time enemies was said mixed blood person. For me I only had the enemies part to deal with because I honestly don't think his being a pureblood was going to upset my parents. They were a little more open-minded than that and besides that my father happened to be a pureblood.

Even if I was planning on telling James about the baby I wasn't about to do it until _after_ everyone had been settled in for a little while. The last thing I wanted was to add more stress onto anyone when they were just settling into their vacation. The holidays were right around the proverbial corner and they all deserved at least a moment of calm and quiet. Or at least a dinner that was undisturbed by an earth shattering revelation. No, after dinner I was going to find James and let him know what was going on. Whatever happened after that I would just have to deal with it.

I didn't think he would freak out on my but anything is possible. Perhaps he could be completely and totally disappointed in me. But he was my safest bet. He was the lesser of all evils.

----

Dinner went on without a hitch and without any real problems to speak of. My father was home and the entire family had gathered around the table so that we could all talk. No one asked me what was wrong with me the entire time though James kept on looking over at me as if he were trying to read what was going on inside of my head. I made the effort not to look at him in response even though it was difficult to do with his eyes almost drilling into me. As much as I adored James he was persistent. He _knew_ something was wrong with me and he knew that if he didn't bug the heck out of me I wouldn't just blurt it out. But he wasn't the nag. That was his little brother. It seems funny to say because when we were younger it was the opposite. It seems like the switched personalities. Or maybe James just knew when to _stop_ with the pushing. I wasn't sure; I'm still not sure. All I knew was that he was the only one in the family I would trust with the truth just yet. He was actually the only one outside of Scorpius I was ready to trust with the truth just yet.

I excused myself to go upstairs as quickly as I could, as soon as dessert was done because all of this worry and uneasiness was making the nausea I was already feeling a thousand times worse. And now that my stomach was actually full I was just really, really frightened that I _would_ in fact get sick. It wasn't a pleasant prospect. Not even in the slightest. I just wanted to go upstairs, relax and try to decide how I should go about telling James about my current predicament.

Entering my room I found that I wasn't alone. No, there wasn't another person in my room but there was an owl sitting on my windowsill, eyes glowing strangely in the moonlight. I froze for a moment, watched the owl watching me, closed the door behind me so that no one else could see the owl sitting there, especially since I didn't know why it was there. It seemed like I was keeping a lot more secrets from my family than I ever thought I would.

The owl flapped its wings impatiently, stuck out its leg so I could see the letter lying in front of it. I knew it had been a bad idea to leave my window open when I went downstairs. Having your window open when it is the dead of winter doesn't exactly help the illusion of there being nothing wrong but I was feeling extremely hot today, like someone had taken to putting boiling water directly into my veins themselves. I had read somewhere that a lot of women tend to feel overheated when they're pregnant and couldn't help but wonder if there were a spell or a potion of some kind I could take that would counteract that. There had to be. There seemed to be a potion for everything else in the world.

I made my way over to the windowsill cautiously, not sure if this owl bit or was going to start flapping in my face but the moment the envelope in front of it was between my fingers it merely backed up, turned and flew right out of the window all so quickly I barely had time to register it leaving.

The envelope had my name on it but that's really all and to be honest I couldn't recognize the writing itself. That didn't mean anything of course. If it was from a casual acquaintance then I wouldn't recognize it. It wasn't as though I had everyone's handwriting memorized. It wouldn't surprise me if my mother had memorized the handwriting of every person she knew though. She was an avid information collector.

I sat down on my bed as I opened up the envelope, listening to the sound of my family moving around, coming up the stairs and going into various rooms. Hugo slammed the door to his room behind him, predictably. Lily would be staying with me tonight but for now she was spending time with the rest of the family. For now she was chattering with Al as they headed down the hall, past my door. I didn't care where they went as long as I got some time to rest and calm down my stomach. And read the letter.

_Weasley,_

Should I take it that you haven't informed your parents of the condition you've gotten yourself into? It wouldn't surprise me at all to know that you hadn't. I don't suppose you're looking forward to the idea of having to let them know that they're about to become grandparents. Or telling the rest of your family for that matter. I wonder who will react the worst to all of this: your mother or your father. Which do you suppose it will be? I'd heard they could both have rather horrid tempers.

You are aware, of course, that if you don't tell your parents that you've gotten yourself knocked up that the school itself will have to inform them and I do think they'd rather receive that bit of information from you than from the school. I'm sure you'd prefer that as well.

If you're wondering if I plan to let my parents in on this little bit of information then perhaps I should let you know now that no, my parents aren't going to be informed of the situation now. It isn't my body that is about to change nor am I the one in danger of having the school contact my parents. I don't see any reason to let them know what you caused. Why should I ruin their holidays?

Now, before you go getting angry with me- and don't pretend that you won't get angry when we both know that right now the tip of your ears are probably red enough to rival your father's hair- we can discuss all of this when we're back at school. After all, I already said I wasn't going to ignore the situation at hand. That hasn't changed it doesn't mean I'm going to spoil the holidays here with the revelation. Perhaps you aren't aware but holidays with my family aren't all that easy to take care of to begin with.

Tell me how breaking the news to your family went when we get back to school. I'm sure that story will be very, very amusing.

- Scorpius

The thing was that he was right. I _was_ annoyed that he wasn't going to tell his family about the baby. I knew I had gotten into this situation on my own; that my own curiosity had been the cause of the whole mess but it just didn't seem fair. He would get to enjoy his entire holiday without having to worry about upsetting his family while I was going to shake mine to the core. True, life was rarely fair but this went _beyond_ the normal kind of unfair. At least normally when a girl got pregnant they were able to blame the guy as much as themselves. For me, however, there was nothing normal about it and I really couldn't blame him. But still, I was rather annoyed.

Crumpling up the note in my hand I tossed it in the general direction of the rubbish bin near my door in time to nearly hit James as he opened the door. With the light visible from under the door he knew I hadn't been asleep so I couldn't even be annoyed at him for opening the door, couldn't tell him he should be more careful about walking into my room. Besides, I always locked my door when I really, really didn't want anyone just coming inside. It was my own fault for not doing so this time.

He glanced back and forth between myself and the crumpled up letter which had landed just shy of the bin. "Frustrated, are we?" His voice was very calm, very matter-of-fact, almost as though he weren't actually asking me if I was frustrated but informing me that I was.

"Not particularly," I lied. It came out of my mouth quite easily to my surprise. I had never truly lied to James- had evaded the truth of course- and I wasn't sure I would be able to and yet I had done it, just as simple as if I told him what time it was. It was rather unnerving.

"Somehow I doubt that," he said, his voice confident and still calm as he reached behind him and closed the door, listened for the click that signaled it was shut entirely. He made his way over to my bed, took a seat, watched me sitting there, watched me refuse to meet his eyes.

He reached over and laid his hand on my arm, squeezed down just above my wrist until I looked at him. "I know that something's bothering you," he told me, that same matter-of-fact tone that he had used when he first got inside of my room and asked if I was frustrated. He just had this way about him where he could be devastatingly calm. "And I'm sure that the rest of the family has noticed it, too." He squeezed down again, shaking his head a little bit. "You know you can't hide things from your mother for very long. Aunt Hermione is devastatingly perceptive."

Unfortunately he was right. Mum had this habit of always being able to pick up on it when we were keeping something from her, to always know when we were lying. It was probably one of the most devastatingly frustrating things about having her for a mother. The fact that she was devastatingly brilliant was difficult enough since I was expected to live up to her but the fact that I couldn't really keep anything from her made things quite a bit more difficult that I would have liked. No, she would surely notice that there was something wrong with me if I kept trying to hold this all inside, if I kept on pretending that everything was perfectly fine. And though that was the truth it was a bit of a bother having James point it out to me.

Heaving a heavy sigh I flopped backwards onto my bed, lifting up one hand to rest if over my eyes, covering my face almost as though I were hiding when I was honestly just frustrated at the moment. Not with James, of course. I was frustrated because for the life of me I couldn't quite figure out how to explain all of this to my family. I had been trying to figure that out since the day in the hospital wing but I had yet to figure it out yet.

"You know," I said as calmly as I could manage. "It can get rather bothersome to have such an observant family. I don't like not being able to keep secrets."

He lounged back on my bed, resting his weight on his elbows so his torso wasn't on the mattress. "I only ask because you seem troubled," he told me. "If there's something wrong I would like to be able to help you. If I can."

"You can't," I assured him. "Trust me when I tell you that there is absolutely nothing that you can do that could possible help the situation I'm currently in. If there were something I would tell you I would ask for your help. Sadly this is a situation that can't be changed by anyone really."

"Hey." He reaches out, tapped my chin, waited until I moved my arm away from my eyes so I was looking at him as he spoke. "How can you possibly know that, Rosie? If you don't let me know what's wrong then you can't possibly know that I can't help you."

"Trust me: I know."

"Humor me," he suggested. "Let me know what's wrong and we'll see if I can't help, shall we?"

I bit the inside of my lip, considering whether or not I should just blurt it all out to him. Of course if I were able to gauge his reaction it might be helpful. It might make me able to guess how my parents would react. True, James wasn't one of my parents but it would probably still give me an idea. He _was_ family, after all. And I already knew I could trust him not to tell the others. And I knew if I didn't share with someone I would surely go mental. He was giving me permission to share this with him, asking me to trust him and how could I say 'no' to that? How could I turn down the chance to reveal the truth to someone I knew I could trust?

"That," I started, motioning towards where the letter was lying crumpled up on the floor. "Was a letter. From Scorpius."

"Malfoy?" I don't know why he seemed to want that confirmation. Neither of us knew of anyone else named Scorpius. "Why would he be sending you a letter?" He paused then, his dark eyebrows furrowing as he watched me. "Has he been bothering you, Rosie? Is that what's making you so uneasy? Is Malfoy giving you a hard time?"

"No, that's not it." Actually, considering what had happened he hadn't been being too bad. He was actually even a bit friendlier than I had expected him to be. The boy was just full of surprises.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I want you to promise me that you won't repeat this. Not to anyone, James. Not to my brother or your siblings; not to my parents or yours or our cousins. No one."

"Alright."

"No." I sat up slightly, propping myself up in the exact same way that he was propping himself up. "I want you to actually promise. Say the words. I need to hear them or I can't tell you. I trust you when you say you'll keep it a secret but I have to actually hear it. Alright?"

"Alright." James nodded his head a little bit, keeping his eyes on my face. "I promise that I won't tell anyone, Rosie. You don't have to worry about me keeping your secret. Although if it's as big as you're making it seem I don't think you'll be able to keep it for very long."

"I'm well aware of that," I assured him, turning my head slightly to look ahead of me. "Do you remember that book of spells and potions I found? The one that was full of pranks."

"Of course. I think Uncle George wanted to steal it, to try to use them to make things for his shop."

"Well, I was playing around with one of the spells and I misread it. And that's how Scorpius is involved."

"That doesn't really explain anything."

"I know." I paused, took a slow, deep breath; swallowed hard. "I didn't think the spell was going to work. I thought it was a joke from the writer. He had just been frustrating that day so I thought it would be funny." I glanced over at him, shrugged my shoulders the best I could in the position I was in. "I did the spell as a joke. When I read it what I thought I read was that whoever you think about when doing the spell ends up pregnant. I really didn't expect it to work. Nothing I had tried that was that big never worked. But I thought the idea of Scorpius being pregnant was amusing. Impossible but amusing."

"Wait." He held up a hand, palm facing me to stop me in mid thought. "Are you telling me that you worked a spell and that because of that Scorpius Malfoy is _pregnant_?"

"No! No, of course not! That would be impossible, wouldn't it?" I shook my head a little, hair flying in front of my face. "And I already told you that I misread it."

"So….what happened?"

I closed my eyes, counted to ten. "If a female thinks of a male when casting the spell it doesn't impregnate the male. It impregnates the female with said male's child."

He was quiet for several moments, so quiet I was afraid he was about to explode. "So, are you saying…?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I'm, strangely enough, carrying the next generation of Malfoys as we speak."

"You're _what_?!?"

Of course life had to throw me another curve in the road and this one came in the form of a gaping redhead standing in my doorway. Which means I was utterly and completely ruined.

James may have been able to keep a secret but Lily? Well, she was an entirely different story.


	7. Quiet Laughter

I could literally feel my stomach churning uneasily as Lily stood in the doorway, her mouth hanging open, her eyes as wide as saucers. It looked as though she were about to drop dead from shock over what she just heard. Well, to be honest, I had been shocked when I found out as well. She wasn't as shocked as I had been, of course- after all, I _was_ the one with a tiny little life gestating within me, not her- but she was doing a fairly good imitation of my reaction. And she hadn't even gotten to see it. Quite the sight to behold.

I turned my own equally wide eyes towards James and without a single word or even a question he got off of my bed and wrapped one of his hands around his sister's upper arm, tugging her into the room and closed the door behind her with his free hand. Lily only stumbled slightly as she was tugged inside, her eyes still wide and fixed on me as though I had grown an extra head. Well…semantics, really.

"What the bloody hell is the point of having a sodding door if no one in this family respects the sanctity of it being _closed_?" I groaned, flopping backwards once more onto the bed and lifting my hands up to cover my face. "Privacy in this house is a theory and _not_ an actuality."

"Sod off with your privacy issues. Onto more important manners- you _shagged_ Scorpius Malfoy?"

"No!" I replied in a heated whisper, sitting up once more and doing so quite abruptly, lifting one finger up and pressing it to my lips in the universal sign to keep her voice down. "Would you lower your voice? The walls in this house have ears, you know that."

"You know, it isn't a good idea to get her flustered," James scolded his little sister as he took his seat on my bed once more, folding one leg up onto the bed, the foot resting beneath the other leg. "I've heard it isn't healthy for a pregnant woman to get too worked up. Could be hazardous to the child or something or other."

"Oi!" Grabbing my pillow I slammed it against his shoulder in a rather pathetic attempt to silence him. "I'm more worried about nosy ears and vomiting my guts out, thank you. And since when are you an expert on pregnant women? Knocked many women up yourself, have you?"

He shrugged his shoulders a little, his chest shaking with unreleased laughter while his face tried to remain as innocent as possible. Innocent my big toe. "I hear things," he tried to soothe me. "I'm listening more often than people realize." He reached out and put on of his hands on my shoulder, still trying not to laugh while meeting my eyes. "I can assure you that you, Rosie, are the only person in this house that has a secret offspring."

"Prat." I swung my pillow at him again, this time at his head and when it made contact with my intended target the laughter he had been trying to hold back finally slipped past his parted lips and he began to laugh, as quietly as he possibly could but still with his entire body shaking, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. And I couldn't help the small smile that tugged at my mouth at the sound.

"If you two are done being bloody children, I would like to know that the hell is going on!" Lily hissed at us, lifting her arms up in frustration and letting them drop back down to her sides, her palms slapping against her legs as they did. "How is it that you said you were carrying the next generation of Malfoys and then turned around and told me you _didn't_ shag Scorpius Malfoy. I'm not dim, Rose. I know how it is that people find themselves carrying a child." She folded her arms across her chest and arched one of her coppery eyebrows at me, her mouth set in a firm line. Obviously she didn't find my hitting her brother with a pillow as amusing as we had. "So, either you just lied to me _or_ something amazingly bizarre has happened. And while I don't want to believe that you would lie to me I have to say that makes much more sense."

"She didn't lie to you, Lily," James tried to assure her, shaking his head a little as he tried to stop laughing. My smile, however, that I had been enjoying thoroughly since I hadn't had much of a reason to smile in such a carefree manner as of late, had faded from my face. I didn't like the idea of Lily believing I would lie to her but to be honest I couldn't blame her for thinking I was doing just that. It seemed much more logical than, as she put it, something bizarre happening. In theory, after all, I would have _had_ to shag Malfoy for it to be possible for me to carrying his child, wouldn't I? Oh, if only logic was in control here.

Lily turned that cocked eyebrow towards her brother, tapping her red-socked foot almost impatiently on the floor. "That right?" she intoned, her voice disbelieving. "Then what, in the name of Merlin, is the real story?"

"You might want to sit down for this," James advised, the laughter finally faded out though the shimmering hadn't left his eyes, almost like he had nearly begun to cry he was laughing so hard. He held up one hand before Lily could protest and tell him that she'd rather stand and shook his head, his dark hair falling across his forehead. "Just trust me, Lily. You're going to want to sit down."

Lily huffed, almost seeming to be annoyed at the idea that her brother seemed to think that he knew better what she would want or need than he did but she didn't argue with him. She merely stepped around the side of the bed he was sitting on and took a set behind him which made the two of us turn so we could look at her.

I glanced over at James, chewing on the inside of my mouth. Now, I adored Lily, I really did. There wasn't a moment in my life I could say I didn't. Even when she became completely and totally infuriating- as younger cousins can tend to do when they're around as much as mine are- I still adored her. So, it wasn't as though I wanted to keep this from her because I didn't care for her. That was as far from the truth as you could get. I just didn't want her to accidently reveal to anyone what had happened. She, like Albus, would do it quite accidently but would do it nonetheless. And while I knew that I had to tell her now that she knew I was pregnant- after all, that _was_ the big secret, not the _how_- I couldn't bring myself to form the words once more to explain the situation.

James, however, wasn't about to come to my rescue and reveal the whole thing for me, unfortunately. He met my eyes in the dark and just held them, arching his own eyebrow at me. The seconds ticked away with none of us talking and Lily remained sitting there with her arms folded across her chest. And then, eyebrow still raised, James shook his head at me, letting me know that he wouldn't do this for me. There were many, many things he _would_ do for me, but telling Lily what had happened wasn't one of them.

I sighed heavily because I was getting tired of explaining all of this and I would have to do so again with my parents soon enough. Oh, if only Lily hadn't been nosy. Then perhaps I could have gotten away with out having to explain this all for her. Sadly she _had_ been nosy. Expectedly.

So, I explained once more what had happened and once all was revealed Lily just sat there for several moments, watching my face. Her gaze shifted to her brother and then back to me a few times before her arms dropped from her chest. "Bullocks," she said after a moment, slapping her leg with her hand for emphasis. "Now I _know_ you're lying."

Sighing I shook my head. Of course she didn't believe me. Why James had I can't even imagine. It _was_ a rather unbelievable tale, wasn't it? If it had been happening to someone else and they told me about it I would believe that they, too, were lying. But I didn't want her to think I was a bloody liar. Of all the things I could tolerate her thinking about me that wasn't one of them.

So I leaned over and grabbed my school bag, asking James to give us some light in here which he did rather gladly. Once my bag was in my lap I began to dig through it until I found the book that had started this whole mess. Turning towards the page I knew so well by now and thoroughly hated to look at given my current state I held it out to her, tapping the page to indicate that she should really, really look at it.

She gave me a doubtful look but heaved a heavy sigh as though I were asking her to do something rather difficult and took the book from my hands. I watched her eyes skim across the page, watched her eyebrows draw together. She glanced up at me and then back down at the book and then back at me again.

"Bloody hell," she breathed, dropping the book down onto the bed between the three of us. "You weren't lying," she continued, her eyes wide again with surprise and, perhaps, relief that I wasn't suddenly lying to her. "You got yourself knocked up with a spell."

"I know," I groaned softly, lifting up the pillow I had hit James with from where I had placed it and covering my face with it, letting out a sardonic laugh into the fabric of my pillowcase. "And I have no bloody idea how I'm suppose to tell my parents about all of this."

"Won't that be a cheerful conversation?" Lily says unhelpfully. "Oi, Mum and Dad, there's something I need to let you know. I couldn't read a sodding spell properly and now I'm knocked up with the grand-spawn of your mortal enemy at school. Fancy some tea?"

Lowering my pillow from my face I gapped at her, unable to believe that she would say it like that. And then the edge of her mouth twitched like she was trying not to smile and remembered that she could be as much of a bloody prat as her brothers and let out this surprised sound, lifting my pillow up and hitting _her_ upside the head this time.

She let out a soft squeak and grabbed the other pillow from my bed and slammed me in the head with it.

I gapped at her. "You can't _hit me_," I insisted. "I'm bloody pregnant," I continued, hitting her in the head with the pillow once more for emphasis.

"A bloody pillow to the head isn't going to harm your little Malfoy-spawn any," she assured me, slamming the pillow against the side of my head again.

"You're both nutter children," James decided, shaking his head as he watched us.

Lily and I exchanged glances with each other and then, without a word of even a discrete motion to confirm our agreement we both slammed the pillows we were holding into her brother, listening to him grunt in surprise and then gape at _us_. And then it became a competition to see who could hit him the most.

It was a fun situation although exhausting so eventually we let up on poor James and dropped the pillows to the floor and all three of us lay on my bed, laughing quietly but serenely. It felt good to do something _normal_ for a little bit. Normal hadn't exactly been in the cards for me lately and wouldn't be in the future so this short reprieve from worrying had been quite wonderful to be honest.

Once the laughter had faded silence set in around us, somehow both comforting and awkward.

"What am I going to do?" I asked them quietly.

"You having the baby?"

"Of course I am, Lily."

"Well, then it looks like you're going to have to prepare to be a Mum," she said quietly. It was something she knew that I knew but for some reason felt the need to say. "And, of course, try to figure out how the hell you're going to explain all of this to your Mum and Dad. And to be honest I don't quite envy you. I don't know how I would be able to tell Mum and Dad about something like that. I'd probably give Dad a bloody heart attack."

"I think Dad has a bit of a stronger heart than Uncle Ron," James insisted and then reached out, placing a hand on my arm. "No offense."

"None taken." Hell, I knew that my father was easily excitable. My mother had told him on more than one occasion that he was going to burst a blood vessel one day if he didn't learn to take things more in stride. I didn't think this was one of the things she'd think he was overreacting to, however. Hell, Mum could end up being just as bad as Dad if not worse.

"Malfoy know about all of this?" Lily asked.

"Yes," I told her. "Told him a bit ago. Apparently he has decided that while I have to inform my parents about this little mess during the break or else the school will that _he_ isn't in danger of that nor is his body going to change so he has absolutely no reason to inform _his_ parents about what's happening."

"Bloody wanker," Lily muttered under her breath and I couldn't help but smile. "You ought to hex him into the next blood century for being such a prat. It's his bleeding child, too. No matter how it got there it carries that blonde-Slytherin-Malfoy genes."

"He _said_ that he was going to at least be a part of this, even if this whole thing was my fault," I assured her. "Said that since the child was, technically, still his as well that he wouldn't just pretend it didn't exist. That Malfoys didn't abandon their children or something like that. I was a little shocked that he even said he was going to be a part of it all."

"Surprised you didn't have a heart attack yourself," she said quietly. "Bloody hell, Rose. You can only keep this from the rest of the school for so long. Eventually you're going to start to show and, well, it would be rather difficult to hide it, won't it?"

"I had thought about that, actually. And it's just something I supposed I'm going to have to learn to deal with."

"You going to let people know who the father is when they start to wonder?" James asked, turning his head a little to get a better look at my face.

"Hadn't been planning on it. If Malfoy wants to step up and tell them all that he's the bloody father that's his choice. I won't tell them for him."

"If you refuse to tell people who the father is they'll talk about you," Lily warned me. "They'll start calling you a slag and all sorts of horrid things."

"I know." And the thing of the matter was that I _did_ know that. But I just couldn't bring myself to reveal who the father was. It wasn't my place to put him on the spot like that in front of the whole school. And what if he changed his mind about wanting to be a part of this child's life? Couldn't say I would blame him or be all that surprised. It wasn't as though we were even _friends_ let alone together. And he hadn't really done anything to warrant becoming a father. If people knew he was the father and he decided to walk away then he'd be a bloody outcast. Only his Slytherin friends would stick by him but the rest of the school…well, they wouldn't think to highly of Scorpius Malfoy anymore, would they? My reputation being ruined is enough in all of this. There was no reason to ruin his, too.

"I'm willing to accept that consequences of my own stupidity, Lily," I told her quietly. "It isn't bloody ideal or anything. None of this is, actually. But I'd rather not drag him down with me, to be honest. I got myself into this mess. I can't even say he did anything wrong or that he'd be an outright bastard if he walked away. It isn't as though we shagged and then went 'well, bloody hell, now we've gone and made ourselves an accidental baby' or anything. We haven't even done anything close to that." I shrugged my shoulders slightly. "No point in ruining his reputation. How he handles this whole thing is entirely up to him."

"You're better than me," Lily said after a moment. "Because if it was me, the moment someone questioned who the father was, I would bloody well scream that it was him so he'd have to be a man and do the right thing."

I laughed at her a little, closing my eyes. "Then I suppose it's a good thing that I'm the one in the situation and not you, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

"When are you going to tell your parents?" James asked me.

I thought about it for a second. "Tomorrow," I decided. "Family dinner. With your Mum and Dad here it might be entirely possible to keep my parents relatively calm. And perhaps I won't have to repeat it to anyone again. Or I hope not." I turned my head slightly to look at Lily. "You can keep it a secret until then, right?"

After a moment Lily nodded her head a little. "I know: I'm not the best person to trust with a secret," she admitted quietly. "But this is a big one. An important one. And I can keep it a secret that long for you while you try to figure out just how to tell your Mum and Dad."

"Thanks." I looked up at the ceiling and closed my eyes again. "Wish me luck," I requested quietly.

They didn't say it out loud.

They didn't have to.

I knew they were already doing that for me.


	8. Breakfast Before The Storm

When I woke up in the morning I knew that if I didn't tell my parents about my situation today that would mean my dear, sweet cousin Lily would end up doing so. As much as I loved that girl, when it came to things like this I didn't trust her any further than I could throw her. Not with secrets at least. Oh, she could _try_ to keep a secret for me but I don't think she'd be able for more than until after dinner, _maybe_ when we were all getting ready to go to bed for the night. But by the time breakfast rolled around the next day then it was, at the best, quite iffy.

So, when I woke up that morning I knew that I would have to tell my parents when we were all sitting around for dinner. But that was the last thing I was concerned about when I woke up that morning. By the time that happened my family was already downstairs, my mother in the kitchen cooking breakfast and the upstairs was almost silent save for the sound of my brother in his room down the hall. The smell of eggs cooking wafted upstairs and beneath the small crack between the bottom of my door and the floor and it made me wake up almost instantly, bile instantly rising up in my throat. Morning sickness as they liked to call it had decided to strike. And to be honest, I wasn't sure why they called it that since it didn't always happen in the morning. It happened whenever it damn well pleased.

But this time it is happen in the morning and flung my legs over the edge of the bed so that my feet hit the floor and sat up, putting my hand over my mouth just in case I found it difficult to hold it in and headed out of my room and down the hall towards the bathroom, glad that the door is open which meant it was free and threw myself into the room, slamming the door shut behind me and was instantly bending over the toilet and emptying the contents of my stomach into it, my gun wrenching with each time I did it, my eyes burning from the stomach acid.

I threw up three separate times before it stopped and I was able to collapse to the floor on my knees and rest my hands on the seat and then resting my forehead against my forearm. Normally I would want to get away from there as soon as I could but I was lacking in energy seeing as I had just woken up just before vomiting like there was no tomorrow. It was horrid and all consuming, made my head spin, made everything cloudy. It was devastating and I could feel the distinct start of a headache spiraling around behind my eyes.

The headache got worse when there was a loud knock at the door, a knock I knew quite well. It was my brother's knock. Unfortunately he had a habit of doing that, knocking really loud when I needed it the least though I couldn't really be mad at him at that time. It wasn't as though he knew what had just happened. It didn't make it feel any better though. But if I didn't answer him then he wouldn't go away so I just groaned and lifted up my hand to wipe at my mouth and looked towards the door, sighing a bit heavily. "Yeah?"

"Mum wants to know if you're coming down to breakfast." Of course she did. She _always_ wanted us to come down for breakfast even when we weren't feeling like it. And right then I wasn't feeling like it at all. I hated the idea of having to do down there and eat at that moment. But if I didn't go down Mum would want to know why which meant I had no choice but to answer my brother.

"I'll be down after I shower," I called back to him. I really didn't want to do that, go down there and play nice, eat breakfast and act like everything was normal. But I had to do that for now. I had to pretend everything was as it always was. At least until I told my parents what was happening to me. "I'll try to make it as quick as I can."

Outside the door there was silence for a couple of seconds, probably because my voice was a bit raspy from the stress of vomiting but then I heard him tap the tips of his fingers against the door, almost like he was debating what to do. "Alright. I'll let Mum know. Don't take too long though, yeah? You know how she gets about us eating breakfast."

"I know."

As soon as I heard my brother walking away from the door I forced myself into a standing position, looking at myself in the mirror. I looked about as good as I felt which you can imagine wasn't all that good considering I had just thrown up what felt like everything I had eaten in the last month and a half. My mouth still tasted like bile and my teeth felt fuzzy from it. It was a horrible feeling. So, I brushed my teeth and stepped into the shower, letting the warm water wash over me. it didn't help much but it was warm and woke me up enough that I thought I could make it downstairs on my own, not having to get help or hold on to the wall.

Once I was done showering I pulled on my robe and went into my room to get dressed and take my morning potions. The school had opted to make sure I had enough for Christmas holiday since I had promised to tell my family about my condition during the break from school. But until I did they wanted to be sure I was safe, healthy. And not just for myself but for my baby as well. My baby was, after all, an innocent. It was best to make sure that the child didn't suffer because of my secret.

I made my way downstairs with my hair still wet. My brother and cousins were already at the table and the smell of eggs was still strong in the air but after having vomited already and having taken my potions it wasn't horrible enough to make me feel sick again. Both James and Lily looked up at me when I sat down but didn't let their gazes linger on me for too long which I was thankful for. If they kept watching me for too long then my mother would get suspicious.

In the corner of the room my brother was digging through the cabinet to find the syrup. If one thing could be said for my mother it was that when we were home from school- especially if we had family visiting- she put out quite a spread at breakfast. Far too much food for all of us to actually eat but with plenty of choices so we could all have what we wanted. Sometimes my father still couldn't believe how much food she would make since in his house they had never really had money to spare, since they only tended to make what could be eaten so that they could conserve the money they did have. But he enjoyed they way Mum did things. He enjoyed it quite a bit.

Hugo popped out of the cabinet, syrup in hand and popping a cookie into his mouth. If Mum saw him she'd be upset but it just made me smile. Sometimes he had an insane sweet tooth that couldn't be sated. Mum would worry, of course, that he would ruin his appetite by snacking down on cookies before we ate but I knew that nothing could get rid of his appetite. He would be able to eat more than his fair share of breakfast even if he had ten cookies. Having just one wouldn't ruin his appetite even in the slightest.

The thing about my brother is that he was two years my junior and yet he looked older than me. I had never been able to figure out just how that was possible but he had started to look older than I was when he hit thirteen. And, of course, he reminded me of it constantly, how if anyone who didn't know us was introduced to us they would assume _he_ was the older sibling. It didn't bother me though. Not even a little bit. alright, so that's a bit of a lie because sometimes it got frustrating when he played into it, pretended to be the older one when people assumed that. But I had gotten used to it and had learned that getting upset over it was pointless.

He sat back down and put the bottle of syrup right in front of me. Just looking at the thick brown fluid inside made my stomach churn uncomfortably. Turns out I wasn't as over my nausea as I thought I was.

Swallowing thickly I reached over to the teapot that Mum had set out on the table and poured myself a cup, hoping that would settle my stomach a little bit. I didn't think I'd be able to handle much more than toast and maybe a little bit of fruit this morning. If I was lucky, of course. "Where's Dad?"

"Out back," Hugo replied, passing me the little ceramic container that held the sugar cubes Mum always put out on the table at breakfast time. Or tea time. She always felt the sugar cubes were easier to use than spooning out sugar. It ensured us not using too much or too little a lot easier than loose sugar. "Said he wanted to work on something." Hugo met my eyes and then rolled his. We both knew what that meant.

Even now Dad and Uncle Harry had this ridiculous urge to play a one-on-one Quidditch game every time they got the chance to. and that also meant that around the time that Uncle Harry was heading over my father would go out back and make sure that he had maintained his broom well enough that when he used it there would be no problems. So, if Dad was out back that meant there was going to be a one-on-one Quidditch match later today. Most likely between lunch and dinner. It depended on when Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny got there.

Dropping two cubs of sugar into my cubes I smiled at him a little bit, stirring my tea as I looked over at James and Lily, arching both of my eyebrows as if to tell them that it would be interesting to watch them later. If I was feeling up to it then I would watch the testosterone driven match between my father and theirs. It all depended on my morning sickness.

"You slept late." Mum turned to look at me from her place at the stove, spatula in one hand, her curly hair pulled back into a hasty, messy ponytail. "Feeling alright?"

"Fine," I assured her, lifting up my teacup to take a sip and hide the look on my face. If she could see my entire face she'd _know_ I was lying. I don't know how she'd know but she'd know. Mum used to say that mothers have a sort of magic, that they can always tell when their kids are lying. I didn't believe it when I was really young but when I was older, when I was a teenager I finally realized that somehow she _did_ know. So, on the rare occasion I _did_ lie to her I tried to cover part of my face to hide the lie the best I could. "Just a bit tired, I guess." I lowered my teacup, smiled at her. It was a tired smile but still a smile. I tried to make myself feel less guilty by reminding myself that it wasn't a _complete_ lie. I _was_ tired. But I was only tired from feeling sick which I couldn't tell her about just yet. It would have to wait until later when everyone was around. It was just much easier to tell everyone all together.

Mum looked at me for a couple of seconds using that searching look he reserved for when she was trying to decide whether or not we were telling the truth. Generally that look was reserved for Hugo because more often than not he assumed that he could get away with lying to her. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't. That ability that mothers had to tell when you were lying could be quite frightening in that way. But after a moment she just nodded her head and looked back at what she was doing. "Alright. Do try to take better care of yourself and get more sleep. I don't want you to get sick."

Lily, who had been taking a sip of her tea snorted into it and I kicked her under the table. She lowered her teacup to the table giving me a less than amused look as she leaned down to rub at her leg.

Mum turned to look at her, arching one of her dark eyebrows. "Something I said strike you as funny?"

"No," Lily assured her, turning to look at her and giving her the most brilliant smile she could manage. "Sometimes you and Mum just sound alike, that's all." It didn't seem fair that _she_ could lie to my mother and get away with it but somehow she managed to. I figured the whole thing with mothers knowing when you're lying only applied with their own child, however.

Mum didn't catch the lie though. She just smiled at her. "Most mothers tend to sound alike. Such is the curse of becoming a parent. One day you'll sound like your mum as well." _Great_, I thought. I was going to sound like my mother when I got older. There were worse fates, of course. But I wasn't sure I wanted to sound like her. Or a mother in general though it seemed I didn't have much of a choice since I was planning to actually keep the baby. And that's when I realized that Hugo was going to be oh so happy to be able to say _he_ was the good child for not reproducing at our age. My, my. My life was getting less and less appealing by the moment.

"Hopefully I won't have to sound like Mum any time soon," my cousin replied, still smiling as she turned to face the table again.

"Oh, Merlin forbid," Mum breathed, waving a hand in the air like the very thought made her feel as though she were going to have a heart attack. Leave it to Lily to make the situation worse with a couple of words. It made me want to kick her again. _Hard._ Things were already going to be odd, be complicated. The last thing I needed was for it to be made harder but that's exactly what Lily was inadvertently doing. Little cousins. Can't live with them, can't kill them.

Luckily- or unluckily, I wasn't sure which it would be yet- my father came in just before I could slam my foot against Lily's leg again, his face covered in dirt, his hair just a bit too long and curling at the ends which meant Mum would have to cut it again soon. If I hadn't been sure already that Dad was out playing around on his broom the dirt on his face would have been all the proof I needed. There was absolutely no other reason I could think of that Dad would have that much dirt on his face. Especially since Mum would have killed him if he normally went around dirt on his face like that. As it were she flinched a little when he kissed her on the cheek because his dirt covered nose brushed against her face.

"Clean yourself up," Mum demanded quietly, waving a hand at him like she's trying to shoo him away though its more like she doesn't want him to sit there with dirt on his face or that she doesn't want him to get dirt on her face when he kisses her cheek like that.

Dad just laughs at her, grabbing a towel from the counter and bringing it over to the sink, turning the water on and dipping it beneath the water. "Yeah, yeah," he says after a moment, waving his free hand at her and then reaches up to wipe at his face with the towel, turning to lean against the counter while he cleans his face off.

Dad's eyes jump across the tables, looking at each of us in turn, scanning our faces until his gaze stopped on mine. My stomach clenched again because it seemed like no matter what I did they were going to keep looking at me like that, like I had suddenly turned into something strange and bizarre than they had ever seen before. But, of course, that could have been because I was so pale from having vomited immediately upon waking up. His ginger eyebrows furrowed as he looked at me, pausing in wiping the dirt off of his face. "You alright, Rosie?"

"Fine," I assured him, smiling just a tiny bit. I wasn't sure how many more time I could handle someone asking me that before I felt ready to scream at the top of my lungs. That would have looked quite suspicious though so it better served me to refrain from doing so. If I freaked out on anyone for simply asking if I was alright then it would be pretty obvious that I wasn't alright, that something was horribly wrong. "I'm completely fine, Dad. Just a bit tired, that's all."

He watched me for several seconds like he wasn't sure if he believed me. I was getting quite used to that look since I had been faking okay for quite a while but it didn't make it any easier to handle, didn't make me think they'd believe me anymore. But I kept my face blank in a very practiced manner. And after a moment he nodded his head a little bit as if to say he accepted what I had said. "Alright,"

"I already told her that she should try to sleep more at school," Mum told him without even looking away from the food she was cooking.

"Your Mum is right," he agrees, nodding his head a bit as he washes his hands off in the sink and then drops the towel onto the counter. "Sleep is very important ye know, Rosie. Can't be expected to keep up your grades when ye don't sleep." He sat down at the table, smiling a bit at me. "And you know how proud your Mum and I are of your grades."

I gave him a bit of a shaky smile. In all honesty I wasn't sure that my grades were going to be staying on par as my pregnancy went on. And then, once I had the baby, that was another thing entirely. It probably would mean that my grades would falter almost entirely. After all, raising a baby takes a lot of time and energy. It wasn't as though I could put the baby second and my grades first. Only a horrible mother would do that. And I really didn't want to be a horrible mother. I wanted to be the best mother I possibly could and while I wasn't quite sure how good that would end up being I was going to try my hardest.

Lily must have noticed something on my face because she cleared her throat and looked over at Dad, "What time are Mum and Dad coming?" she asked him, giving him a bit of a smile. She was covering for me, yes, but she was also sucking up to him in a lot of ways. Lily was quite good at sucking up to other people's parents, especially when they her aunts or uncles or something of the sort.

"Around five," he tells her after a moment, pouring himself a cup of tea.

"And supper will be at six," Mum interjects from her spot at the stove.

Well, that gave me a timeframe at least for how long I had until it was time to tell everyone about my little bit of news. I was sure that they were all going to be quite displeased to hear the news of the little one growing inside of me but it had to be done. Lifting up my teacup towards my mouth I glanced at Lily and James as discretely as I could. Countdown to war.


End file.
